


Wake

by EmbarrassingLivejournalName



Category: Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22447111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmbarrassingLivejournalName/pseuds/EmbarrassingLivejournalName
Summary: Lex never cried for his father. Death (and return!) of Superman, vaguely based on the Superman comics. Yes, Superman does come back within this story. I'm not a MONSTER.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	Wake

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, i have picked and chosen the bits of Superman mythos i like, and tossed out the rest. all mistakes and maudlin observations on the nature of grief are my own.

Superman died while Lex was in a meeting.

The Man of Steel’s battle with Doomsday had dominated the news all day, so much so that Lex had to put in real work to ignore it. If Superman wanted to showboat and spend hours punching a roided-out slab of concrete back and forth across the country, that was his business. Lex wanted no part in the spectacle. He avoided the television, silenced his phone, and vaguely hoped that the two combatants would cause enough destruction to prompt a round of public hand wringing over the Cost of Superman. Lex enjoyed those.

When Lex’s teleconference was over and he stepped from his office, he knew that something was badly wrong. All four of his assistants, two secretaries, and a smattering of employees Lex couldn’t name were hovering in a silent clump across from his door, waiting for him. Years ago, a similar gathering had broken the news of his father’s death to him, in the cramped hallways of the old LexCorp building, three hours before Lex was due to meet with the mayor of Metropolis. Lex made that meeting, and the one after that. He never cried for his father. He couldn’t summon the feeling for it.

Superman did not die alone in a hospital bed, abandoned by his only son. He died in full view of the nation, martyring himself before an audience of millions in a desperate attempt to stop a monster. Lex did not see it. Not live. In the days that followed, he would watch every piece of footage he could get his hands on--everything from news reports to shaky cellphone videos--hundreds of times. Thousands of times. But he did not see it live. That night, he went home and drank until he blacked out. 

His driver had given him a knowing look when Lex left work early. “I bet you’re the only person in the world who’s happy right now,” he said.

Superman’s funeral was a global event. The streets of Metropolis burst with mourners. Every business in the city closed, including LexCorp. Lex spent the day alone in his office, looking past his computer, staring out at the clouds.

Grief was a strange thing. Complex and nuanced, with ebbs and flows. For weeks, Lex barely spoke to anyone. Then, all at once, he was back to normal--better than normal, with a string of successes that sent the company stock soaring. He was magnanimous and charming with his employees and business partners. At home, he continued to drink, waking up to smashed glasses and spilled booze, his cheeks salty with the residue of his own tears.

Lex did not cry for Lionel, but he cried for Superman. Night after night, until he thought it might kill him. When the city dragged its feet in building a memorial, Lex funneled money through a dozen channels to build a private monument in the center of Metropolis. Every time his car passed it, shining in the sun or lit up at night, he hated Superman a little more.

Eventually, months of abusing his own body caught up with him. He was not young, not anymore; he could not bounce back the way he used to. He hired a sober coach and did the bare minimum to get his liver working again. He cut his hours at the office. He remained alone. Through it all, he clung to his grief, refusing to let time dull the sharp, precious pain of it. One year passed, then two. The world moved on. Lex moved with it, one step behind.

Two years and forty-seven days after Superman died, a quartet of pretenders burst into the public eye. Sixty days after that, Superman himself was back, glorious and perfect, his face shining from every screen on every device across the planet. Lex sat at his desk and shook with rage. His laptop met a terrible end, smashed against the wall in a white-hot fury. Lex returned home and drank again. Later that week, for the first time in his life, he texted Clark Kent. 

_ Welcome back _ . 

It was an enormous breach of conduct. The rules of engagement during the worst of their feud had been strict because both men knew the stakes. Lex could destroy Superman’s civilian life: expose him to the world, target his family, murder his friends. Superman could kill Lex with barely a thought. Self preservation depended on an unspoken gentlemen’s agreement to keep their fight limited to themselves. 

Death, Lex felt, was a reasonable pretext for setting those rules aside. 

Kent did not answer him for twelve hours. When he did, the response was terse:  _ How did you get this number?  _

Lex had gotten it with a few calls to the phone company. He told Superman this in a disjointed, misspelled explanation that he wrote between fits of vomiting in the bathroom. Superman sent one text for every five Lex sent him. It was good enough.

They met one day later on the LexCorp roof, long after the sun had set, the culmination of hours of tense negotiations between the two. Lex did not know how he would react to seeing the man himself, but when Superman appeared, the effect was as devastating as Lex had feared. Yet the Man of Steel was the same, utterly the same, standing in front of the hollowed-out shell of Lex Luthor like the last two years had never happened.

“You wanted to talk in person,” Superman said.

Lex had wanted to, in theory. In practice, the idea was much less appealing. “I thought we could clear the air.”

Superman’s mouth was a straight line in a block of granite. “I’m listening.”

The night sky stretched above them, cloudless and vast. Lex cleared his throat. “You know, I was...I always thought that if anyone could kill you, I would.”

Superman’s exhausted sigh filled the space between them. “This is your idea of clearing the air? You’re sad that  _ you _ didn’t kill me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lex insisted. “I said I thought if anyone could, I would. I never expected it to happen.”

“A hundred death traps say otherwise.”

“You always got out of those.”

“So, what--you want to try harder next time?”

“I don’t, no.”

A gust of wind ruffled Superman’s cape. Superman regarded Lex for a long, long time. “You look like hell,” he said at last.

Lex smiled wanly. “Things haven’t been going that great for me,” he admitted.

“Listen--” Superman began.

“We don’t have to go back to the way we were,” Lex interrupted. He was too loud, his voice too raw. 

Superman was taken aback. “What did you say?” he asked.

Lex heard his own words from a mile away. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to pick back up and make it like it was. We can make something else. Something better, maybe.”

“Something better,” Superman repeated dubiously.

Lex pressed on. “Something different, at least.”

An unbearable silence was his only answer. Superman appeared to be thinking. Lex felt his eyes start to burn, and oh, for the love of god,  _ not now _ .

“You know I don’t do speeches, so I’m saying this once: I’m trying. I don’t know if I can fix any of this--any of the mess we made--any of the mess  _ I _ made. But I’m going to try.” A miracle Lex didn’t deserve kept his voice steady. Superman remained quiet. “It’s fine if you don’t believe me,” he added. “God knows I wouldn’t.”

The wind kicked up. Lex shuddered and waited for the inevitable rejection. Maybe then, at last, he could start to drag himself back to something approaching normal.

“I believe you,” Superman said.

Lex lost what was left of his composure. “ _ Why? _ ” he wanted to know. He  _ demanded _ to know. What in god’s name could possess anyone to be so naive?

“I always--well. I always believed you. I always believed  _ in _ you,” Superman told him. It was so matter of fact--as though Lex weren’t a lost cause, as if he warranted anything but the deepest contempt from a man he’d spent a lifetime trying to ruin.

Lex did cry then. Standing on top of his empire, his hand in front of his face, Lex Luthor cried until he had no tears left.

He heard Superman step forward, and did not flinch when he felt a hand on his shoulder, even though the naked shock of it rattled through his frame.

“I’ll hold you to this,” he heard Superman say. His voice was rough. “God dammit, Lex, I’m gonna hold you to it.”

Lex nodded. The hand on his shoulder squeezed a little. “If I fuck up--”

“You’ll fuck up. I  _ guarantee _ you’ll fuck up.” This last was said with an astonishing amount of kindness. “But I’ve never been a one-strike kind of guy.”

Lex nodded mutely. Far below them, the city hummed with life, cars and pedestrians pulsing through her veins. Lex felt his own world start to shift back into sync with it. He looked up at Superman with reddened, bleary eyes. “Just so I know...how many strikes are we talking here?”

Superman laughed. His eyes, too, were red. “More than one, less than ten,” he said.

Lex nodded. “I can work with that.”


End file.
